SHRM-SCP Practice Online

A biotech seed company has grown by acquiring smaller brands to become the largest firm in the country offering genetically modified grains. The company is now composed of a national brand and 12 regional brands. Over the past five years, the company has invested a large portion of its profits in new research. To recoup its investment, company executives have established steep sales revenue and operating profit goals to support aggressive earnings forecasts. Although revenue has increased consistently for the last five years, neither sales nor profits are meeting expectations to sustain new product research. Tensions are high, because the brands were competitors prior to being acquired and employees are fiercely loyal. In addition, the aggressive sales goals have led to increased complaints of ethics violations by the sales staff. Company executives task the VP of HR with leading a project to redesign the sales incentive plan to increase market share, customer loyalty, and internal collaboration between the different brands. The project team consists of senior sales executives, HR business partners, and business and financial analysts from the national and regional brands.

Which action should the VP of HR take to ensure that the project stays on track and barriers to success are removed?

A company operates in a very cost-focused environment, keeping its customers in the forefront of every decision they make. A recent merger has doubled the company size and expanded the product offerings to better serve customers. Each of the merged organizations had a significantly different approach to HR's service delivery. However, despite these and a number of other differences, the merger went ahead.

The merged company recently hired a new senior director of HR, selected primarily due to her expertise and experience in mergers and acquisitions. She reports to the CEO and the president of the newly merged company and has been tasked with leading the integration activities from an HR perspective.

The HR director recognizes immediately that, aside from needing to get the new HR organization established, HR service delivery is critical due to increasing cost pressures, a larger global workforce, and increasing internal and external customer expectations. She has met with her new HR team and key business stakeholders to obtain valuable feedback and proposals.

Which action should the HR director take first to achieve a successful integration of the HR functions?

The sales department of a company is in the midst of reorganization. An important factor in the decision to reorganize was the president's concern over lagging sales and missed targets for the past two years and a desire to restructure the compensation plan for this group. Once the reorganization was announced, the director of the sales group resigned. This gave the company the opportunity to restructure the leadership of this area, resulting in a new vice president (VP) of sales being hired, replacing the former one.

As part of the new VP's onboarding, the HR director updates the VP on the sales reorganizing activities to date and on employee performance in the area. He also shares the proposed structural changes and indicates that the former VP sales leader may have shared these plans prematurely with the sales staff. The plans include possible staff reductions and ending unprofitable customer relationships.

What actions should the HR director take to demonstrate an understanding of the priorities of both the sales function and the organization?